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The President and His Policies 



A SUNDAY ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



Rodeph Shalom Congregation 



Rabbi J. Leonard Levy, D. D. 



Pittsburgh, April 19th, 1908 



L nsu 



'Ll> 



The President and His Policies. 



By the Rev. Dr. J. Leonard Levy 



A curious characteristic of human nature is the ten- 
dency to vilify the hving helpers of the race. Strange 
and ungrateful a])pears that human trait when it resorts 
to abuse of its best and most permanent friends. The 
pages of history record the reiterated demonstration of 
brutal hate and bitter opposition manifested toward the 
benefactors of humanity. 

The Prophet AlJiised. 
Name a prophet who is today honored by the plaud- 
its of the mighty, and I will name one who, when living, 
was probably adorned with a crown of thorns ! Name me 
a genuine benefactor of the human family and. for the 
most part, I will name one^ who was nailed to a horrid 
cross. For thus has the world, through its false leaders, 
ever treated those who were its helpers. It made them 
wear sheepskins and goatskins. It forced the wanderer's 
staff into their hands. It drove them into the wilderness, 
like the scapegoat of old, placing upon them the respon- 
sibility, the sin and the punishment of the people. 



Delivered before the Eodeph Slialom Congregation, Pitts- 
burgh, Pa., Sunday, April 19, 1908. Stenographically reported 
by Caroline Loewenthal. 

I 



Denied Today; Deified Tomorrow. 

In most languages we find some proverb suggesting 
that we "say nothing evil about the dead ;" practical ex- 
perience seems to suggest that the proverb might safely 
be amplified to read, "and nothing good about the liv- 
ing." Curious human nature ! Today it burns a man ; 
tomorrow it lights tapers in his memory. Today it de- 
mands his death ; tomorrow it celebrates his resurrec- 
tion ; the next day it acclaims as a god him whom it called 
a devil a few days before. Today it surrounds his name 
with infamy; tomorrow it places him in the Temple of 
Fame. Today it calumniates ; tomorrow it coronates. 
Today it denies ; tomorrow it deifies. 

Sometimes the crowd accepts the leader, honors and 
praises him for a time, only to denounce him when trials 
come, when the burdens and responsibilities born of the 
new occasion press upon it. Then the masses sigh for 
the fleshpots of Egypt, and, oblivious of the emancipat- 
ing ideals and purpose of their oft-lauded leader, they 
burst into bitter condemnation of him they had previously 
approved and followed. Today the crowd lauds the 
leader to the skies ; tomorrow it seeks to hurl him down 
to ungrateful oblivion. Today it accepts as a gift of God 
the words, the deeds, of its peerless commander ; tomor- 
row it vents its wrath and voids its hateful spirit of in- 
gratitude upon him. 

Why Rejected. 

The greater the service, the greater the scorn heaped 
upon the living servant of humanity ; so seem to indicate 
the recurrent incidents in the life of mankind's emanci- 



pators. We may understand why the prophet is without 
honor in his own land and age, and we may comprehend 
how it comes that the world's opposition and hatred are 
the unthinking world's tribute. The true servant of man 
toils not for today, but for coming ages. He scarcely 
lives in the day when he moves on earth ; he is already 
living centuries ahead. This the crowd understands not. 
The masses cannot see the Promised Land, clear to pro- 
phetic vision. They cannot grasp the c(ViKliLions of the 
Ideal Repul)lic. which he so clearly sees. And so they, 
under the destructive guidance of false leaders, call him 
"the enemy of human kind,"' or "fiend incarnate,"' or 
"disturber of the status quo," or "child of the devil," or 
they abuse him as "the troubler of Israel."" They say 
that he creates prejudices, interferes with personal hap- 
piness. destro3^s the peaceful relations of the people, dis- 
turbs trade, unsettles public opinions. Upon his devoted 
head is laid the sin of the many, and, as shifting respon- 
sibilities is an ancient vice, they attribute to him the 
cause of the temporary ills which their own sins have in- 
vited. Thus it happens that before he dies he, who was 
the honored and accepted of the people, becomes the 
despised and rejected of men. 

Hosanna and Crucify. 

Thus has the world ever treated its Messiahs ; thus 
it still treats its chosen ; and thus the unthinking, surface- 
skimming world is likely to long continue to treat those 
who help it most. They will follow the master as long 
as he is popular. They will take ofif their coats and their 
cloaks and lay them down in the streets that he may 



ride over them. They will bear aloft the palm branches, 
crying" "Hosanna, Hosanna, Master and Savior!" But, 
when they are debauched by the predatory powers that 
be ; when they receive word from those who enjoy vested 
rights or control corporate interests thriving by dishon- 
est methods; then they slink away from him, suiter him 
to walk his Via Dolorosa alone, permit him to be led 
alone to the Golgotha of public hate, there to suffer an 
ignominious end. 

Roosevelt an Uplifter. 

You. can already observe that this reflection is called 
forth by the sacred occasion, (Palm Sunday), which is 
being celebrated throughout Christendom today, and by 
a thought of the man who, above all men, is, in certain 
quarters, held responsible for the adverse economic con- 
ditions prevailing throughout our country. I would not 
have you believe, for one moment, that I place Theodore 
Roosevelt and Jesus of Nazareth side by side in the scale 
of service to humanity. But I do believe that, if it was 
enthusiasm for God that moved the one to offer his life 
for human kind, it is devotion to the moral ideal that has 
impelled the other to serve this nation and its people as 
have few Presidents or public officials in the history of 
this or any other nation. I would not have you believe 
that I consider Theodore Roosevelt a modern Messiah ; 
but I do think that all the qualities that go to make the 
helper, the uplifter, the noble servant of men, may be 
found in this honorable man who is at present the chosen 
representative of this great nation. 



Equal Courage in Defeat. 

He has passed through the period of loud acclaim. 
For several years the people have been crying to him, 
"Hosanna." \\'hat he would do were these people to-turn 
and cry. "Crucify," remains to be seen. I believe, how- 
ever, that the same moral grandeur which has been mani- 
fested by him in the past, will be shown in the future. 
For, brave men. usually, no more show courage and 
splendid bravery for several years uninterruptedly, only 
to fail when the greatest test comes, than does a coward 
display courage in the supreme moment of his life. There 
ma}' be exceptional cases, but the history of man would 
indicate that a man who is a coward will remain cowardly 
when called upon to face great occasions, whilst the brave 
man will have equal courage to face defeat as he had the 
hardihood to invite defeat. 

Fighting with Fate. 

]\lr.' Roosevelt is one of those men who may be called 
a creature of destiny. Born of a well-to-do family, af- 
forded abundant opportunity for the development of all 
that was great and good in him by blood and environ- 
ment, he discovered, in the early years of his budding 
manhood, that he was physically weak, that he was 
threatened with disease, that his years would, probably, 
be few. He did not weakly yield to an adverse fate ; 
but, going out to the Western prairies, he struggled with 
fate and conquered it. Fortunately, I might almost say, 
providentially, he came back a healthy, strong, vigorous 
man, prepared to do a man's work in a man's world. 
Wherever we find him, considering for a moment the 



details of his life, whether in the Assembly at Albany, or 
in the Police Commissioner's Of^ce in New York, or in 
the Naval Department in Washington, or at San Juan, 
or in the ^^'hite House, we find the same heroism mani- 
fested, the same rugged fearlessness with which he en- 
tered upon the first fight of his life, the fight with sick- 
ness. Many a man would have yielded and said, "What's 
the use?" But the creature of destiny rarely yields except 
to the right, the fit, the decent, the proper. 

Man Proposes and God Disposes. 

Roosevelt's life having been spared in youth, and 
again during the conflict with Spain, it would not be sur- 
prising if he should regard himself a creature of destiny. 
I do not for a moment say that the President so considers 
himself ; I mean to convey that it would not be strange 
if he did, especially in view of other circumstances, pass- 
ing strange in the extreme. The Republican National 
Convention held in Philadelphia in 1900, in conjunction 
with the experiences already referred to, was fraught with 
consecjuences which would assure most men that Roose- 
velt was a creature of some strange, not to say provi- 
dential, destiny. The period between March, 1898, and 
September, 1901, was rich in peculiar experiences, illus- 
trating the truth of the proverb, "Man proposes and God 
disposes." Admiral Dewey was sent to take charge of the 
Chinese Squadron. He was to be put beyond the possi- 
bility of distinguishing himself during the Spanish-Ameri- 
can War ; whatever glory might come to the Navy lead- 
ers, Dewey was to get none. He was to be relegated to 
oblivion. Admiral Sampson and Admiral Schley were 



put in charge of divisions of the Atlantic Squadron. It 
seems as if it was arranged that whatever naval glory 
would be gained during the war with Spain should be 
transferred to Sampson, if possible. The National Con- 
vention in Philadelphia forced upon Theodore Roosevelt, 
then Governor of New York, the nomination for the office 
of A'ice-President of the United States, in the hope, I 
believe, that he should there find the grave of his natural 
and laudable political ambitions. But strange things came 
to pass. Dewey returned as xA.dmiral to the United 
States, the hero of the nation ; Sampson died from paresis 
superinduced, it is held, by worry ; Schley still lives to 
enjoy the distinction he had honestly won; Roosevelt, by 
a strange destiny, became President of the nation, and 
has earned for himself an enviable position in the hearts 
of untold millions all over the world, has made for him- 
self a high place in history, a name and a fame whose 
lustre will not be dimmed, whose glory will grow in the 
coming centuries. 

A Mail of Destiny. 

It would not be surprising that a man who looks 
back upon his past, and sees what religious people would 
call "the finger of God" in so many various events of his 
life, should be stirred by religious earnestness. One of 
Germany's great reformers, walking at the seaside with a 
friend, is overtaken by a storm. The lightning kills his 
com])anion : the man spared becomes one of the conse- 
crated toilers for the reformation of Germany. The be- 
lief that his life, so strangely spared, must have been 
spared for a purpose, became the overpowering influence 



in the life of that reformer in Germany. May it not be 
that the same influence has been silently at work influ- 
encing this man Roosevelt, whose strong ethical purpose, 
whose moral earnestness, whose unquestionable honesty, 
all his followers and even most of his opponents. I be- 
lieve, are willing to admit? 

He Might Have Sought Ease. 

He was called to the ^^^^ite House and every ambi- 
tion, that a lo3'al American might righteously indulge, 
was gratified. There he was, "a scholar and a gentle- 
man," a man of ample financial resources, a member of 
America's first families, a son of the Revolution, a scion 
of families who had served the nation faithfully. There 
he was, having reached the highest place in the gift of 
the Amercan people, surrounded by infinite opportunities 
for ease, for even greater culture, for making himself a 
ruling social factor. I doubt not that if Air. Roosevelt 
had determined to take leisure in the White House, the 
very men who today regard him as "an enemy of the 
Republic," would have said that he was "the best fellow 
living." 

Demand for Publicity. 

But Roosevelt's call to the White House was provi- 
dential, at least so I regard it. He swore to fulfill the 
law, to obey the law, and to see it fulfilled and obeyed ; 
and an oath with Roosevelt is a vow, and a vow must be 
fulfilled. In his first message to Congress on December 
3, 1901, the present President of the United States told 
the people of the United States what he purposed doing. 
Few but his honest followers believed him. Bismarck 

8 



used to say that when you want to fool your enemies in 
political life, tell them the truth, for they will not believe 
it. The President, following that policy, consciously or 
unconsciously, told the American people in his First 
Inaugural Address, on December 3, 190 1, the truth. His 
great demand was for publicity, and I wish to read you 
his words, spoken in 1901, and then his words uttered in 
1907, tile so-called offending words. I want you to pon- 
der these words very carefully. I would like you to learn 
them by heart, so that you may be able to quote them 
to the opponents of the President. Listen to this quota- 
tion from his First Inaugural : 

" * * * There are real and grave evils, one of the chief 
being over-capitalization, because of its many baleful conse- 
quences; and a resolute and practical effort must be made to 
correct those evils. 

"There is a wide-spread conviction that the great corpora- 
tions known as trusts are in certain of their features and ten- 
dencies hurtful to the general welfare. * * It is based upon 
sincere conviction that combination and concentration should be 
not {prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits con- 
ti oiled; and in my judgment this conviction is ''right.'' 

The Offending Speech. 

This he said in 1901 when the nation was congratu- 
lating itself on its good fortune in having so capable a" 
successor to the martyred McKinley. Listen now to what 
he said May 30, 1907, when his opponents had beguii to 
denounce him as a destroyer! 

" * " . But the public interest requires guaranty 
against improp.er nuiUiplication of securities in the future. Rea- 
sonable regulations for their issuance should be provided so as 
to secure as far as may be that the proceeds thereof shall be 
devoted to legitimate business purposes. In providing against 
overcapitalization we shall harm no human being who is honest; 



and we shall benefit many, for over-eapitalizatiou often means 
an inflation that invites business panic, it always conceals the 
trne relation of the profit earned to the capital invested, creating 
a burden of interest payments, which may redound to the loss 
alike of the wage-earner and the general public, which is con- 
cerned in the rates paid by> shippers; it damages the small in- 
vestors, discourages thrift and puts a premium on gambling and 
business trickery." 

Popular Faith in the President. 

This utterance is taken from the address now denom- 
inated as his great blunder. But reflect on the situation 
for a moment ! In his first message to Congress, the 
President told the nation what he sought to do. He was, 
at that time, commended for his courageous utterances 
and was later approved by the nation for the manner in 
which he had carried out that which he had designed. 
The election of 1904 proved that the people of the United 
States were convinced that he was worthy of their con- 
fidence and of the highest honor they could bestow. 
What has he said since that time that has been out of 
harmony with his initial statement? The Indianapolis 
address, just quoted, and which his enemies have most 
bitterly criticized, was a reiteration of first principles ex- 
panded in the light of experience, but it by no means 
differed in important details from his first message to 
Congress. He has been as firm as a rock in his deter- 
mination to fulfill his duty as the Chief Executive of the 
nation, and to keep the oath of ofBce he took on the day 
he was sworn in as President. Read his various ad- 
dresses ! Parallel them with the statements made in the 
First Inaugural, and you will find that during his career 
in the White House he has used his first message as a 



10 



text on which later messages have been, to a great extent, 
commentaries! 

The President Is the People's Representative. 

The President of the United States is no King" of 
England. He has other functions than those of laying 
cornerstones, and appearing at public dinners, and hold- 
ing levees. The President of the United States is no 
Emperor ^^'illiam, is no absolute monarch. The Presi- 
dent of the United States is no Czar, and can have no 
tyrannical will. \\''illiam II. and Nicolas II. rule for life, 
their. heirs are to rule after them, and they are not re- 
sponsible to their people ; but the President of the United 
States is responsible to the people, and the period during 
which he can direct public attairs is wisel}' limited to a 
few years. He is the servant of the people, but he is at 
the same time, the only one who can speak for the peo- 
ple, as things have developed in American history. Presi- 
dent Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia College, Avho 
is conceded to be a very conservative man, says in his 
splendid brochure, "True and False Democracy," (page 
35), that, "as matters stand today. States and syndicates 
have senators ; districts and local interests have repre- 
sentatives ; but the whole people of the United States 
have only the President to speak for them and to do their 
will." Some of the members of the Legislature of the 
United States say that the President is usurping their 
power, that he is encroaching upon their rights ; but this 
assertion must be considered in the light of the advice of 
James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, 
who said, speaking of the Legislatixe Department of the 



II 



Government : "It is against the enterprising ambition of 
this department that the people ought to indulge all their 
jealousy and exhaust all their precautions." 

Roosevelt No Anaemic Weakling. 

Other criticisms of the President refer to his en- 
croachments in other directions. I am sure that he has 
not exceeded his constitutional authority. If he had, I 
am equally sure that you would have heard of it long 
since. There are enough people searching him with can- 
dles and watching him with electric lights, that, were he 
to take one single step beyond the constitutional rights 
of the Executive, you would have been informed of it in 
the form of impeachment. Respecting the President as I 
do, trusting him as I do, I cannot help feeling that he 
has, however, gone further than his predecessors, and 
that he has acted toward Congress and the Judiciary in 
a manner that may possibly lead some corrupt successor 
to use his example as a precedent, tO go further and to 
make a tool of other departments of the government. Be- 
lieving utterly in his absolute honesty and integrity, I 
cannot join those who blame him. What would you have 
him do? The present President of the United States is 
no lady; he is no bloodless ascetic; he is no anaemic 
weakling. He is a man, in whose veins flows red blood ; 
a man who has been moved to the very depths of his 
nature by the unfolding of as great a conspiracy as ever 
wrecked a nation. Can we expect him to stand supinely 
by, and act as so many of his fellow citizens do in the 
presence of frequent acts of unrighteous aggression? as, 
for instance, Pittsburghers have acted while their rights 

12 



have been ignored by political cabals? Do you think 
that he can, or ought to, face national evils as we in Pitts- 
burgh have stood municipal corruption, if Lincoln Stef- 
fens's indictment in his "Shame of the Cities" is true? 
Do you think that he should permit any railroad or other 
corporate organization to make a baggage-car of the will 
of the people and to charge extra rates besides? The 
President is not a man to supinely submit to entrenched 
evil without a protest. He is one whose whole being is 
permeated with moral force. If men seek to abuse privi- 
leges ; if they endeavor by means legal, but immoral, to 
divert the streams of legislation in contempt of justice; 
if they. In- the power of a superior financial position, try 
to debauch the nation ; if they, hoping to escape the con- 
demnation of the righteous, indulge in methods which 
savor of the era of the highwayman, is it not natural that 
such a man as President Roosevelt should visit them 
with burning, righteous indignation? He would not be 
the man he is had he acted otherwise. 

Colonial Policy. 

His policies may be considered under three heads, 
•colonial, foreign and domestic. Plere we find him acting 
with a degree of political foresight and high statesman- 
ship which testify to his splendid ideal of harmonizing 
political legislation with moral principles. If he has been 
wrong then honor is wrong, and honesty is wrong, and 
morality is wrong, and conscientiousness is wrong. Cuba 
had been promised independence, and Cuba has been 
made free. The Philippine Islands fell into the hands 
of this nation by the arbitrament of war ; but the Philip- 



13 



pines are to be civilized, after the American ideal, by a 
process of gradual assimilation. Last year the National 
Assembly was opened in the Islands, and again the 
"square deal," so loved by the President, was made mani- 
fest. With both of these former Spanish possessions our 
government has dealt with a degree of generosity and 
honor which mark a new epoch in the history of inter- 
national diplomacy. 

The Panama Canal. 

A Panama Canal has been the hope of many of the 
best friends of the nation. After diplomatic difficulties 
were removed and the Clayton Bulwer Treaty happily dis- 
posed of, our government entered upon the duty of unit- 
ing the Atlantic wkh the Pacific. But selfish "interests" 
blocked the forward movement. The President's hands 
w^ere tied. Every move was opposed, and a weaker man 
would have succumbed to the powerful . . . opposi- 
tion. You may supply before this word "opposition" 
such adjective as best meets the case from your stand- 
point. You may insert "railroad," or "corporate," or 
"financial," or what 3^ou will. But the President is not 
a man to be used as a toy. When he found that the engi- 
neers who were appointed to direct the construction of 
the canal resigned their positions, for one reason or an- 
other, he resolved that United States officers should 
superintend the construction of the Panama Canal. 
These military engineers are now supervising the build- 
ing of the canal, and they cannot be won away by higher 
salaries, for instance. The canal will be built, no matter 
what, for example. Transcontinental Railroads say. In 



14 



every act of his colonial policy we find evidences of the 
man of honor and the same is trne of his foreign policy. 

Foreign Policy. 

He it was who called the second Hagne Congress, 
yielding, as a matter of courtesy, to the Czar of Russia 
the privilege of issuing the call for the second Congress, 
since the Czar had convoked the first. During his ad- 
ministration, the late John Hay, his Secretary of State, 
obtained an international agreement limiting the area in 
which Russia and Japan could conduct their hostilities. 
If the integrity of Chinese territory is a fact today, the 
world owes that fact to the man who is today so much 
maligned by certain interests in xA-merica. It was Theo- 
dore Roose^'elt who brought about the Portsmouth 
Treaty between Japan and Russia. And if you knew as 
much about that as I do ; if you here heard as much about 
that Treaty as I did while I was in Japan during the 
^cimmer of 1905 : if }'ou read current international opin- 
ions as I did over there, you would, perhaps, realize 
what a remarkable man must he be to have brought that 
delicate and difficult undertaking to a successful conclu- 
sion. There was trouble between Morroco, France and 
German}' ; Roosevelt was again the peacemaker. Today 
the United States has achieved a position in international 
politics second to no country in the W'Orld. We are feared 
by our enemies, if we have any ; we are loved by our 
friends, and we have many ; and my observations, made 
everywhere T have traveled since Theodore Roosevelt has 
been President, lead me to believe that the one man, 
above all others, who, in the eves of the world, stands 



15 



for things typically /\merican, is Theodore Roosevelt; 
the one man in recent years who, above all others, has 
increased the world's respect for America is this great 
.and loyal American, our present President. 

Domestic Policy. 

Coming nearer 'home. We find that most of his 
• domestic policies have been heartily approved by the peo- 
ple of the United States. Roosevelt believes that no 
nation can be healthy, no nation can be prosperous, no 
nation can be great, no nation can fulfill its destiny, that 
has not many healthy children. And, Mr. Roosevelt has 
advocated, for the serious consideration of the American 
people, the necessity of stopping, and stopping forever, 
a mode of life sometimes called French, which is under- 
mining the morals of the people ; a condition far more 
dangerous than unsettling the prices on Wall Street. 
\\'hen women refuse to become mothers of healthy chil- 
dren ; when women despise motherhood, the nation is not 
.safe, there is something "rotten in the state," somewhere. 
No man understands this better than our President, and 
every man in whose heart is love, real love, for the 

nation. 

J Race Suicide. 

We complain of the change in American ideals be- 
cause of foreigners! Why, were it not for the foreigners, 
there would soon be but an insignificant American peo- 
ple left ! Twenty-five years ago Boston, for example, was 
a progressive, 'Unitarian city. A quarter of a century ago 
Boston was the typical American city. Today Boston is 
-almost a foreign city, with a population sixty per cent 
Roman Catholic. This condition results from the fact 

i6 



that the Roman Catholic obeys God's law, for the naturar 
law is God's law, and so many others, Americans by 
birth and blood, affect to ignore it. If the President had 
brought no other grave question to our attention, we 
would be under a lasting debt to him. 

Coal Strike, Etc. 

3ut he has done much more. There was a coal 
strike in the anthracite region a few years ago. The 
poor, especially in the East, where they use hard coal, 
would have been visited by indescribable hardships dur- 
ing the winter if 'the strike had not been terminated. The 
suft'erings of the poor were not considered by the em- 
ployees or employers. There was a combat between 
them to the death, yet he brought ^Mitchell and Baer 
together, and induced them to make peace in the anthra- 
cite region, just as bravely as, later on, he became the 
prime factor in arranging the Treaty of Peace at Ports- 
mouth. 

The Roosevelt administration is responsible for Pure 
Food Legislation ; for a determined eft'ort to save the 
land from further deforestation ; for enlarging the powers 
of the Interstate Commerce Commission ; for increased 
national regulation of the common carriers and not their 
suppression or absorption by national ownership ; for an 
honest attempt to defeat the dishonest practice of re- 
bates ; for laws looking to the curbing of monopolies ; 
for investigations which will ultimately secure for Ameri- 
can commerce the confidence of the nation and the 
respect of the civilized world. 



17 



Construction and Demolition. 
In conducting' a campaign of remedial legislation it 
has been unavoidable that, before constructive results 
could be achieved, some demolition should take place. 
This demolition would have been reduced to a minimum, 
not if the President had been less "impetuous," as his 
opponents say, but if the enemies of the people had not 
entered into a conspiracy to discredit the President, a fact 
to which the senior U. S. Senator from Pennsylvania is 
said to have given expression some time since. I have 
read that President Roosevelt invited prominent men, 
identified with movements which he considered harmful 
to the interests of the nation as a whole, to consult with 
him. I have heard that he pleaded with them to se' 
patriotic motives above selfish interests. They defied 
him. It is even believed by many that they deliberately 
hastened, as far as they could, the recent financial panic 
to destroy his influence, spreading the evil report that 
Roosevelt is responsible for the financial stringency, and 
the money panic and its consequent ills. 

Mr. Wanamaker's Views. 

That this opinion is not shared by some of America's 

most responsible financiers and merchants may be 

gathered from the views they have openly expressed. 

For example ; Mr. John Wanamaker says : 

"For the widespread lack of financial confidence from which 
the country has been suffering I do uot hold President Eoosevelt 
to be in any degree responsible It is the result of conditions 
which he has indeed helped to make known, but of which he has 
not been in any degree the cause. As he himself has admirably 
expressed it: If he lights a torch he is uot responsible for what 
the light shows. 



"The depression first, began thruugli the loss of public con- 
fidence in fin;uicial names which the public had long been taught 
to revere. First came the great insurance scandals, in which the 
revelations regarding Alexandei', McCall, and Hyde shocked and 
iilamied the public. We are still suffering from that. More re- 
cently there have been revelations regarding such things as the 
Metropolitan Kailway management in New York, and the banking 
motliods of the Hcinzes, Morse and others. 

Lack of confidence and financial retribution have come as a 
punishment for financial wrong-doing; it is precisely the kind of 
punishment which follows a cashier's breach of trust. It is not 
surprising that a lack of confidence which ought to affect only 
those institutions which have justly forfeited trust should have ex- 
tended to other great corporations and banks." 

Mr. Carnegie's Opinion. 

yiv. Andrew Carnegie gives the following" as his 
opinion of the financial situation and the President's con- 
nection therewith : 

"It lies in the nature of things that the attempt to attribute 
the recent and spasmodic fall in prices to the wise and, in the 
truest sense, the truly conservative resolve of the President and 
his Cabinet to enforce the salutary laws against the abuse of 
their powers by certain trusts, is only a device to serve political 
intrigue. 

"The decline in prices would have been greater had the peo- 
ple not been assured that investments in the stocks and bonds of 
corporations are hereafter to be safeguarded to a much greater 
degree than ever before. Nothing is proposed or intended by the 
President in this direction which is not the law in civilized 
States." 

Warning of Mr. Fish. 
Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, many months before the crash 
came, had the following to say concerning American 
financial conditions : 

' * The New York Stock Exchange has ceased to be a free mar- 
ket, where buyers and sellers fix prices through the ebb and flow 
of demand and supply, and has become the plaything of a few 
managers of cliques and pools to such an extent that for months 
past every announcement of increased dividends, of stock dis- 

19 



tributions, and of rights, has boon met by a fall in prices. The 
investing public is and remains out of the market, not because 
of ventures in industrials, in electric railways, or in suburban 
real estate — the speculation in each of which was checked months 
ago — nor yet because of the more recently pricked bubble in min- 
ing shares, but simply because of the distrust which even those 
possessed of ample means have of the methods of corporate finance 
now in vogue in New York. That Europe shares this distrust of 
those methods is shown by its outcry against the misuse of Amer- 
ican finance bills. 

"While it may contribute to our national vanity as a 'World 
Power' and as a financial center, to feel that London fears us, 
that does not increase confidence in our own future. We are still 
a debtor nation. Europe holds vastly more of our securities than 
we hold of all foreign securities. 

"Indeed, it seems to me that we are already embarked on a 
long-needed Moral Financial Eeformation, which, like the Eelig- 
ions Eeformation of the Middle Ages, will through much cruelty 
work out good in the end. ' ' 

The Financial Situation. 

Just a word on the financial situation as I under- 
stand it. In the financial life of the nation there are two 
economic cycles. The one finds its way into the legiti- 
mate field of industrial development ; the other into the 
investment fund of the nation. So great has been the 
growth of American industries that the w-ealth employed 
in the first cycle was employed over and over again, and, 
to admit of the widest expansion, the investment fund 
was also employed. A very unhealthy condition ensued, 
in spite of the apparent prosperity. During the last 
decade American industries have grown to a degree al- 
most incredible. We know that just at such a time pan- 
ics come. We have had them with almost periodic regu- 
larity. With all of this the President and his policies 
can have had nothing- to do. 



20 



Did He Make the Scandals? 

"Did he make the Insurance Scandals, the Chicago 
& Alton Scandal, the Corporation Scandals, the Metro- 
politan Traction Scandal in New York," and the other 
scandals, which have shocked the moral sensibilities of 
decent people the world over? Did he initiate the in- 
vestigations, even? Had he blinked at dishonesty, would 
there have been no panic? But could such a man close 
his eyes to successful dishonesty, and permit the nation 
to travel toward a panic that would have dwarfed the 
South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi Bubble combined? 
There has been a panic, but who are more responsible 
for it than the heedless, careless, thoughtless people them- 
selves, wdio have tolerated and even elected the legis- 
lators who were, all too often, creatures of the very per- 
sons who have sought to enrich themselves at the ex- 
pense of the people? I sympathize deeply with the 
unfortunate, innocent sufferers; but how^ many of us are 
altogether innocent? 

Causes of Panic. 

Over and above the suggestions already made, the 
panic is to be attributed to the money stringency prevail- 
ing throughout the world, caused primarily by the undue 
extension of credits, and secondarily by such unpro- 
ductive uses and losses of capital as are represented by 
the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Baltimore 
Fire and the San Francisco Earthquake ; to the shaken 
confidence of investors; to immoral, political conditions; 
to a conspiracy, one evidence of which was given when, 
as John C. Albert, of Washington, reports, thirty million 

21 



dollars were borrowed by one corporation, not because it 
needed it at the time, but in order to meet the expected 
stringency, (Cf. "Roosevelt and the Money Power," p. 
6i) ; to Trust Company development, as indicated by Mr. 
Frank A. Vanderlip, Vice-President of National City 
I'ank, New York City. (Cf. "Annals of American Acad- 
emy of Political and Social Science, Vol XXXI, No. 2, p. 
4.) Other reasons there are too, but enough has been 
said to indicate that the responsibility does not lie where 
the opponents of the President seek to place it. 

No Advocate of Infallibility. 

Consider the many remarkable achievements of his 
administration ; recall the many splendid accomplish- 
ments that have made of our nation one of the foremost 
world powers ; think of how much of all this is directly 
due to the initiative of this man; and you will confess 
that it is marvellous, that, with all that has been at- 
tempted and done by and through him, not more mis- 
takes have been made. Roosevelt has never promulgated 
the doctrine of Presidential infallibility ; this is a gift be- 
stowed, apparently, only on his enemies. He has made 
mistakes ; of course he has, and if he lives longer, as we 
pray he will, he will make more mistakes. Only in the 
cemetery, under the green earth, are no mistakes made. 
But his enemies, at least some of them, have made one 
mistake he has not made; he is honest. 

The People vs. Predatory Wealth. 
The financial panic of 1907 will pass into history as 
one of the most remarkable financial phenomena, because 
of the attempt of some of the guilty to make a scape- 

22 



goat of ail innocent man. This accusation is, I l)elieve, 
born of a conspiracy to divert the attention of the nation 
from the source of the gravest evils confronting the Re- 
public, — the reckless daring of dishonest and conscience- 
less financiering. Roosevelt did not make the scandals ; 
he unearthed them, and by so doing has laid every citizen 
of the United vStates under a debt of obligation to him. 
He entered upon a contest the outcome of which was to 
decide whether this nation is to be controlled by a few 
men, whose power is all the more to be dreaded because 
shielded by the anonymity of corporate organization ; or 
whether the destiny of America is to be determined by 
the people as a wdiole. If the President's policies prevail, 
it is not difficult to foretell the end. 

A Flower for the Living. 
Heinrich Heine once said, "You cannot conduct 
moral reformation with orange blossoms." The Presi- 
dent has realized this. He knows that, to produce the 
reforms he desires, one must emplo}^ the power of moral 
force, strengthened by the influence of a righteous public 
opinion. I believe that the time will come wdien men 
who have calumniated and slandered him will revere him 
and thank him ; that his experience will be like those of 
Washington. Lincoln, Grant, and hosts of others, who 
were hated, denied, slandered while living, and apotheo- 
sized when dead. I, at least, wish to express my grati- 
tude to Mr. Roosevelt while he lives. I want to be one 
of those who can give to him, while living, a little flower 
of appreciation, rather than be called upon, in the due 
process of time, many decades removed, I hope, to lay an 
immense wreath on his coffin when he is gone to his 
eternal reward. 

23 



The Defense of the Enemy. 

In 1901, he was a good President; in 1902 he was a 
good President; in 1903 he was a good President; in 
1904 he was a very good President, and was elected Pres- 
ident of the United States by the greatest majority ever 
given to a Republican candidate ; in 1905 he was a good 
President ; in 1906 he was a good President. After May 
30th, 1907, he was suddenly a bad President. Why? 
Because the offenders had been denounced, because their 
methods had been disclosed. What have they to say in 
self-defense? Read the various articles which have ap- 
peared in the monthly magazines ! What defense has 
been made? What explanation has been offered to the 
exploited nation? Read what Miss Tarbell has to say 
concerning the Standard Oil Company ! I am compelled 
to believe that Miss Ida Tarbell is either one of the 
greatest slanderers and libellers, or that she is quite right. 
And the silence of the Company attacked indicates to me 
that Miss Tarbell is not wrong. I have never yet found 
such corporations bashful. Its peculiar respect for this 
woman indicates something strange somewhere. 

Too Near to Properly Appreciate. 

We are too near to Roosevelt's day to entirely appre- 
ciate what he is doing. To fully realize the marvels of 
the Great Pyramid one must stand at a distance from it. 
One approaches it and sees layer upon layer of stone. It 
looks a very ordinary piece of work. But, viewed at the 
proper distance, it impresses one as being rightly con- 
sidered a world-wonder, one of the most remarkable 
monuments constructed by the hand of man. As our 

24 



successors stand back, and place this man in the right 
perspective, they will realize that he was among the 
noblest of all Americans, because of his moral purpose, 
his proud achievements, his noble and ennobling efforts. 

God or Mammon! 
The President has manifested the qualities of the 
man controlled by a sense of responsibility to God and 
the people. The moral earnestness of a prophet has been 
displayed by him in every situation. We love him for 
the haters he has made. Clean of hands, pure of heart, 
upright in life, the expounder and fulliller of "the square 
deal," a lover of righteousness, personal, domestic, na- 
tional and international, he has served to make our coun- 
try great, and to make its name revered. He has con- 
ducted a battle for decency, for honesty, for commercial 
integrity, which, after the rancor of the defeated has 
disappeared, will be universally approved as one of the 
greatest services rendered a free people by its chosen 
representative. In our day he has renewed the appeal 
of an Elijah. He has made the people begin to under- 
stand that if the Baal of Mammon is God they should 
follow him ; and if the Jehovah of righteousness is God 
they should follow him. He has made it practically im- 
possible for the nation to long halt between two opinions. 

An Assured Place in History. 

Today throughout Christendom millions of people 
are celebrating the resurrection from the grave of one 
who, to them, was God in human form. While I cannot 
agree on doctrinal grounds with the mass of my fellow- 
<:itizens. I am the last to deny, or to belittle, the undying 

25 



service rendered to humanity by the great Xazarene. I 
today also ponder a resurrection, a resurrection of the 
people on earth. I hail the day when men will be pos- 
sessors of a greater degree of liberty. I know that among 
those who have toiled for this desideratum have been the 
chosen of this great nation of which we are a part. For 
this Washington and Jefferson struggled, and Franklin 
and Adams strove. For this the sainted Lincoln bore the 
burdens of a tragic period of our national history. In 
distant ages when the historian will write of those who 
carried forward the work of the founders and martyrs 
of this nation, I am convinced that no mean place will 
be accorded to the man who, so bravely, so boldly, and 
so honesth', has directed the affairs of our country in our 
day. I am sure that posterity will set an even higher 
estimate upon the life-work of our great President, Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, than I have humbly sought to do today. 



26 



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